Henry Tapper of First Actuarial said QE had pushed returns on government bonds or gilts, on which annuity incomes are based, below the rate of inflation.

"Nobody ever suggested that the long-term cost of borrowing for the Government would fall below the rate of inflation. But that is what quantitative easing has done," he said. "It's meant that you are lending your pension savings out with the prospect of a lifetime return so low that people who have bought annuities from 2009 through to 2014 will have 'never had it so bad'."

Mr Tapper pointed out that, as annuity buyers' money was used to buy gilts, they were effectively lending money to the Government. But he added: "Whereas you have the money, it's the borrowers who have the clout. The cards are stacked against you.

"You have to pay, as a reduction in your income, for the costs the borrowers incur in setting aside money in case you live too long and in case they run out of money.

"To make matters worse, unless you prove otherwise, the people who are borrowing money from you will assume you will live for ever – well into your nineties – unless you can prove to them there are good reasons you won't," he said, referring to the fact that people whose life expectancy is reduced can get a better pension income by buying an "enhanced" annuity.

The result was that "many annuitants won't get their money back", Mr Tapper said. "QE is one problem, an overcautious approach to insuring guarantees is another, and the crazy side-effect of EU legislation on equalising men and women's annuity rates is a third. These are systemic problems with annuity purchase that people retiring today can do nothing about."

Mr Tapper added: "People know that guaranteed annuities are not the mass-market solution they are being sold as. They know that there are better options out there, which is why so many people refer to private pensions as a 'rip-off'.

"It's crazy that I have to talk about 'fighting back' against the people who are borrowing money from you. It's crazy that the whole financial system is stacked against the annuitant and it's bizarre that in 25 years of operating these personal pensions, virtually nothing has been done to address the systemic inadequacies of the system known as 'guaranteed annuitisation'."

He described the fact that 400,000 people a year were still buying annuities despite such deficiencies as "a car crash".

Annuity rates are currently close to record lows, despite a rise of almost 50pc in the yield on 15-year gilts, which annuity rates have historically reflected.

During the 1959 general election campaign Harold Macmillan, the Conservative leader, told the British people that they had "never had it so good".